


Ten Years Before The Flood

by TiamatsChild



Category: due South
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-07
Updated: 2012-01-07
Packaged: 2017-10-29 04:10:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 498
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/315650
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TiamatsChild/pseuds/TiamatsChild
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Victoria meets a man she’s known forever.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ten Years Before The Flood

When she met him he told her everything about himself. She knew him. She knew about the trout he’d spent afternoons watching as a young child, restless and wild, not interested yet in the books his grandparents gave him in quiet confidence that he would grow to be fascinated by them. Which he did, and so he told her about those too, about the long afternoons in the libraries and in the open, summer heat, summer refuge, no need to be near anyone, all the energy it took, always on his best behavior precise and firm, because the family was the family, he was a Fraser, there were things that meant, obligations to fill, politeness and solidity two of them. And oh, he was solid, oh, his history called her back, set her heart thumping again, faster faster so strong it frightened her, after how low her heartbeat had dropped.

On and on and on for hours, his voice, his stories, some of them not his, explanations of other people’s stories, people he knew, people who’d lived and died years ago, people who’d likely never existed. Six different versions of Red Riding Hood, how Raven stole light, how Vishnu sleeps with his wife upon eternity, where he’d gone those hours he was missing when he was six and no one could find him, how he’d met Diefenbaker and wanted him to live, how he wanted her to live, how life was precious, how there was so much of it and yet everyone got such a small span it wasn’t right to just let it slip, hold onto my voice then, I’ll stay with you.

On and on and on until his voice gave out and he took her fingers and set them in his mouth instead, and it shook her, he shook her. Her hands in his mouth instead of his words, and she wanted, suddenly, to curl up inside his skin, to stay there, she was so cold, but she could feel the spark of the intimacy. She was not shocked, no, she could not be shocked by him, the storm had been there forever, and he had known her forever, and she had known him, although he had another life, a whole history, and somewhere she did too.

She could feel him breathe around her hands, she could feel his breath thin out, like his voice, though he still had more words, she knew, and she wanted to tell him, wanted to make sure he knew that there was a her outside this storm too, there was, but she was dying too, her mind was distant, and besides, the creation of words (of sentences, paragraphs, stories, the grace of phrases and small metaphors) were never her gift. So she gave him words not her own, and they sat there together, for ages upon ages, while the world ground itself away beyond them, while all the ages of humanity passed outside the small shelter of his coat.


End file.
